Tanks, please use strength gear.. :(

[Sapphidia]

Everyone on this page seems to either be parroting or ignoring this post I made.

I'll actually respond directly here, because you make some good points, but I feel there's one key element that you've missed when comparing the tank dps thing to the other classes improving their overall performance.

I should probably make a new post on the topic of "Power Fantasy" and why half the playerbase is torn, but the basic concept is simple : Healers improve their DPS via optimising gaps in their need to heal, but still wear the same gear. They arent nerfing their healing output because it's due to how they play, and gearing up increases healing + dps together. If they suddenly need to pump out a tonne of healing, they just turn Cleric off and take full advantage of their gear. DPS players only gain more and more DPS with gear upgrades, but also gain increased survivability as a matter of course as they get free vitality on every left side upgrade. Maximising the class for these two roles is more about playing better, finding opportunities to do other things, and have a "one gearset fits all" system.

With tanks it's different. Now, I'm not going to argue against the merits of Str vs Vit, it's been done to death. Yes, Strength is better in most cases. Yes, Vitality is pointless beyond certain levels. But one thing is present that goes beyond just the stats and figures:

Vitality makes you "feel" tankier. You see big numbers on the health. You see your health bar going down slower.

Now this doesnt really mean much, but "power fantasy" is a key element to enjoying the game. Players who gravitate towards DPS roles generally love seeing big numbers on their hits, they love seeing huge crits pop up, they love seeing a DPS meter with their name at the top showing they've done huge amounts of damage, and they love how getting an upgrade increases all of these.

Now, tanks can also gain just as much enjoyment from this dps fantasy, but the power fantasy of a lot of tank players (particularly those gravitating towards the less aggressive styles, or the PLD class in general) is to be as tough as nails. They care about maximising their class, they care about doing lots of DPS, but they get MORE fun out of feeling like an immovable wall.

This is the problem a lot of players face - regardless of the actual facts, they have to make a SACRIFICE of Vitality in order to stack strength. It's not like healers. They don't just wear one universal set of gear and then maximise their dps by just playing better, knowing the rotations and stance dancing more effectively. They have to make an active choice before a fight starts that they are going to purposefully reduce their effective hitpoints, make themselves able to take less damage without healer intervention, in order to do more damage.

This is a tradeoff, not just a matter of being better. Yes, the best tanks will go strength and understand the lack of impact vit stacking has, but the psychological effect is there. If there's a wipe and the tank explodes, be it due to bad play or more likely something like lag, or the healer gets distracted, or someone accidentally pulls an extra pack... if that happens, some tanks just can't stand the idea that the pre-battle choice they made to nerf their health might have contributed to their death.

It's simply a power fantasy thing, and for players who DON'T have the power fantasy of wanting to feel like an immovable wall I can understand it's difficult to grasp. The game is telling them that they have to give up the feeling they play their class for and optimise towards a different feeling.

The best players will do it anyway, but they don't have to be -happy- about that.

A counter : imagine if Healer DPS scaled entirely off Intelligence and Cleric Stance didnt exist. Healers would be pressured to wear entirely INT gear on the right side, have 35 points in Int, and the community would be saying "just get as much Mind as you need to heal an encounter, then put the rest in your DPS". They'd feel like they were nerfing their potential healing output in order to optimise a secondary role. The best players would do it and it would be fine, but there'd always be that devout core of healers that gain most pleasure out of seeing huge healing numbers that would really resent it.